Humane orientation, work-family conflict, and positive spillover across cultures

Although cross-national work-family research has made great strides in recent decades, knowledge accumulation on the impact of culture on the work-family interface has been hampered by a limited geographical and cultural scope that has excluded countries where cultural expectations regarding work, family, and support may differ. We advance this literature by investigating work-family relationships in a broad range of cultures, including understudied regions of the world (i.e., Sub-Saharan Africa, Southern Asia). We focus on humane orientation (HO), an overlooked cultural dimension that is however central to the study of social support and higher in those regions. We explore its moderating effect on relationships between work and family social support, work-family conflict, and work-family positive spillover. Building on the congruence and compensation perspectives of fit theory, we test alternative hypotheses on a sample of 10,307 participants from 30 countries/territories. We find HO has mostly a compensatory role in the relationships between workplace support and work-to-family conflict. Specifically, supervisor and coworker supports were most strongly and negatively related to conflict in cultures in which support is most needed (i.e., lower HO cultures). Regarding positive spillover, HO has mostly an amplifying role. Coworker (but not supervisor) support was most strongly and positively related to work-to-family positive spillover in higher HO cultures, where providing social support at work is consistent with the societal practice of providing support to one another. Likewise, instrumental (but not emotional) family support was most strongly and positively related to family-to-work positive spillover in higher HO cultures. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Faculty Time Expenditure Across Research, Teaching, and Service: Do Gender Differences Persist?

Faculty members are continually confronted with a multitude of activities among which they must divide their time. Prior research suggests that while men and women academics spend the same number of weekly hours working, women tend to expend more time on teaching and service relative to men while men expend more time on research relative to women. Based on cross-sectional survey data from a sample of 783 tenured or tenure-track faculty members from multiple universities, we examine gender differences in time spent in research, teaching, and university service. Regression analyses show that gender differences in time allocation continue to persist after controlling for work and family factors. More specifically, women report more time on teaching and university service than do men, while men report more time spent on research than do women. Results provide evidence that gendered differences in faculty time allocation are robust across time. Potential implications for policy are discussed.

Masculinity contest culture: Harmful for whom? An examination of emotional exhaustion

The relationship between masculinity contest culture (MCC) and emotional exhaustion was examined with hypotheses informed by the job demands-resources model. Additionally, trait competitiveness and gender were considered as predictors within a three-way interaction model informed by social role theory. Hypotheses were tested using a two-timepoint survey with a sample of 494 full-time employed adults. Results indicate MCC relates to emotional exhaustion. Support is also provided for a three-way interaction between overall MCC, trait competitiveness, and gender with men with lower trait competitiveness displaying the strongest positive relationship. Overall, results suggest MCC operates as a stressor with the potential to harm psychological well-being and that the strength of this relationship varied based on gender and trait competitiveness. Specifically, higher trait competitiveness buffered relationships between MCC and exhaustion for men but intensified this relationship for women. Implications for employee well-being and disparate health outcomes across groups are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Toward a better understanding of the causal effects of role demands on work-family conflict: A genetic modeling approach

Over the past several decades, there has been considerable interest in the theoretical causes of work-family conflict (WFC). Most studies have focused on situational determinants, often ignoring the role of personal factors such as disposition and heritable elements. We increase understanding of person versus situation influences on WFC through estimation of the relationship between role demands and WFC after controlling for genetic confounding, measured personality traits, family confounds, and other stable dispositions. Based on twin data from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS), we examine the role of genetic factors in explaining variation in WFC (both work interference with family [WIF] and family interference with work [FIW]). Results support WFC has an additive genetic component, accounting for 31% [95% CI 18%, 45%] and 16% [95% CI 2%, 30%] of the variance in WIF and FIW, respectively. In addition, we test two competing hypotheses with regard to the relationship between role demands and WFC. Results support the phenotypic causal relationship for WIF, consistent with the notion the relationship between work demands and WIF reflect situational processes. However, results support the genetic confounding hypothesis for FIW, indicating observed relationships between family demands and FIW are primarily due to genetic factors. Our results provide new insights into the nature of WFC relationships and underscore that ignoring the influence of heritability can bias estimates of role demand effects in WFC research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Safety not guaranteed: Investigating employees' safety performance during a global pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic threatened employees' health and safety more than any event in recent years. Although millions of employees transitioned to working from home to mitigate infectious disease exposure, many worksites re-opened amid the pandemic as high infection rates persisted longer than expected. Safety guidelines were issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, and other national initiatives to improve the health and safety of employees returning to on-site work. The current work addresses predictors of infection control safety behaviors in a general working population that largely lacks infection control training and expertise. Drawing from Neal and Griffin's model of safety behavior, we investigated organizational factors (i.e., perceived safety climate, safety-related organizational constraints, occupational risk of COVID-19 exposure) and individual factors (i.e., infection control safety attitudes, conscientiousness, and risk aversion) associated with employees' infection control safety behaviors shortly after returning to on-site work during the pandemic. Survey results from 89 full-time employees across industries demonstrated that the organizational and individual factors accounted for 51.19 percent of the variance in employees' infection control safety behaviors. Organizational factors accounted for 49.02 percent of the explained variance, and individual factors accounted for 50.98 percent of the explained variance. Conscientiousness, perceived safety climate, safety-related organizational constraints, and infection control safety attitudes explained significant variance in employees' infection control safety behaviors, while the occupational risk of COVID-19 exposure and risk aversion did not. Organizations may benefit from considering employees' conscientiousness and safety attitudes during employee selection as well as enhancing their organization's safety climate and mitigating safety-related organizational constraints.

Goldilocks at work: Just the right amount of job demands may be needed for your sleep health

OBJECTIVES

It has been reported that job demands affect sleep, but how different levels of job demands affect sleep remains unclear. We examined whether curvilinear relationships exist between job demands and multiple sleep health outcomes.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional analyses with linear and quadratic effects, using self-administered survey data.

SETTING

A national sample of US adults.

PARTICIPANTS

Workers from Midlife in the United States Study (MIDUS2; n = 2927).

MEASUREMENTS

The Job Content Questionnaire assessed overall and 5 specific aspects of job demands (intensity, role conflict, work overload, time pressure, and interruptions). Habitual sleep health patterns across 5 dimensions (regularity, satisfaction/quality, daytime alertness, efficiency, and duration) were assessed. Age, sex, race/ethnicity, marital/partnered status, education, job tenure, work hours, body mass index, smoking status, and study sample were covariates.

RESULTS

There were significant linear and quadratic relationships between job demands and sleep outcomes. Specifically, the linear effects indicated that participants with higher job demands had worse sleep health, such as shorter duration, greater irregularity, greater inefficiency, and more sleep dissatisfaction. The quadratic effects, however, indicated that sleep regularity and efficiency outcomes were the best when participants' job demands were moderate rather than too low or too high. These effects were found for overall job demands as well as for specific aspects of job demands. Stratified analyses further revealed that these curvilinear associations were mainly driven by participants with low job control.

CONCLUSIONS

Moderate levels of job demands, especially if combined with adequate job control, are related to optimal sleep health.

Examining the Aftermath of Work-Family Conflict Episodes: Internal Attributions, Self-Conscious Emotions, Family Engagement, and Well-Being

Little empirical research exists on attributions that people make regarding work-family conflict that they experience. Our study used attribution theory to examine the aftermath of work-family conflict episodes. We used a diary method in which respondents reported their daily encounters with work-family conflict, attributions they made about its causes, feelings of guilt and shame they experienced, and their levels of daily family engagement and well-being after work. Based on Ilies et al. (2012) we hypothesized that internal attributions of work-family conflict would be associated with feelings of guilt and shame, and that these emotions would in turn be differentially associated with daily after-work outcomes. We also hypothesized that the degree to which individuals were satisfied with the resolution of their work-family conflict would moderate the relationship between internal attribution and guilt/shame. Results largely supported our hypotheses, with guilt demonstrating a positive link to family engagement while shame showed a negative association. We also found that shame, but not guilt, was negatively associated with daily well-being. One's level of satisfaction with the resolution of work-family conflict emerged as a key variable as well. Lastly, we discuss the theoretical and practical ramifications of our findings.

Pushing the boundaries: A qualitative study of how stem women adapted to disrupted work-nonwork boundaries during the COVID-19 pandemic

National reports widely publicized that the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic's disruption of work-nonwork boundaries impacted women's careers negatively, as many exited their jobs to manage nonwork demands. We know less about the adaptations made by highly career-invested women to remain in the workforce in occupations where they are extremely under-represented. Based on qualitative data from 763 academic Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) women at 202 universities, we examined adaptation to disrupted work-nonwork boundaries and identified workplace contextual features associated with these adaptations. Results show that STEM women varied in their adaptation. Many women adapted their professional image management approaches: From concealing nonwork roles-particularly when in less supportive contexts, to revealing them-often to challenge existing ideal worker norms and advocate for change. Also, women adapted through varying forms of role sacrifice; trading off one role's execution for another, mental detachment through psychological role withdrawal, or abandoning role duties through behavioral role exit. Notably, some sacrificed their nonwork roles, although the dominant media narrative highlights women sacrificing work roles. Work contextual features associated with boundary management adaptation include structural support (e.g., flexibility) and social support (e.g., empathy). Results illuminate the complex decisions faced by STEM women when they lose the scaffolding supporting their work-nonwork interface. Moreover, the results have practical and theoretical implications for advancing workforce gender equity, and for supporting all employees' work-nonwork boundary management. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Remote worker communication during COVID-19: The role of quantity, quality, and supervisor expectation-setting

Given the huge increase in remote work that has accompanied the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, understanding predictors of performance and wellbeing among remote workers has never been more timely. Effective communication is commonly cited as key to remote worker success, yet communication variables are rarely incorporated into remote work research. In the present study, we examined the relationship between communication frequency, communication quality, and supervisor-set communication expectations with daily job performance and burnout in an occupationally-diverse sample of employees. We used an experience sampling design and our hypotheses were tested with data collected over a 4-week period with a sample of 471 employees who shifted to full-time remote work due to COVID-19. Results indicated that daily communication quality was associated with daily performance and burnout. In addition, the extent to which supervisors established expectations about communication practices (e.g., expected response times to email) at the onset of the transition to remote work was positively associated with performance, but not burnout. Task interdependence was also tested as a moderator. Task interdependence moderated the relationship between communication quality and performance, such that the relationship was stronger when task interdependence was higher than when it was lower. Task interdependence also moderated the relationship between supervisor-set expectations and performance such that the relationship was stronger when task interdependence was lower than when it was higher. Expected curvilinear relationships between communication frequency and outcomes were not detected. Based on our findings, we provide recommendations for practice and future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

An examination of the temporal order of helping behaviours and emotional exhaustion

An emerging body of research has investigated the relationship between helping (as a type of organizational citizenship behaviour) and emotional exhaustion (as an aspect of employee health). Research has demonstrated a significant relationship between helping and emotional exhaustion, but the theoretical arguments for the causal direction vary across studies. Specifically, some researchers have conceptualized helping as an outcome of emotional exhaustion, while others have regarded helping as a predictor of emotional exhaustion. This lack of theoretical clarity in directionality hinders the field's ability to summarize existing empirical findings cohesively and elucidate theoretical mechanisms. Therefore, this study attempts to clarify the theoretical directionality between helping and emotional exhaustion using four waves of data collected at 6-month intervals. Autoregressive cross-lagged analyses with auto-correlations revealed that more helping was associated with less future emotional exhaustion from Wave 1 to Wave 2, but from Wave 2 to Wave 3, the directionality reversed, as less emotional exhaustion significantly predicted more future helping, and from Wave 3 to Wave 4, both prediction directions were no longer significant. The findings suggest that helping and emotional exhaustion reciprocally affect each other, though the reciprocal pattern may disappear across time. The present study sheds light on the theoretical relationship between helping and emotional exhaustion, and provides theoretical and practical implications.

A cross-national meta-analytic examination of predictors and outcomes associated with work-family conflict

Through the lens of boundary theory, we systematically examined cultural context as a moderator of relationships between work-family conflict and its key theoretical predictors (work/family hours and work/family demands) and outcomes (job satisfaction, family satisfaction, and life satisfaction). We used 2 different approaches to examine cultural variation in the strength of work-family conflict relationships: (a) individual cultural values (collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance); and (b) regional cluster configurations (e.g., Eastern Europe, South Asia). Our meta-analytic investigation is based on data drawn from 332 studies (2,733 effect sizes) that represent 58 different countries. Consistent with prediction, results revealed that collectivism moderated WIF/FIW and satisfaction outcomes such that relationships were weaker in more collectivistic contexts than in less collectivistic contexts. Little evidence was found to support power distance or uncertainty avoidance as individual cultural moderators. Findings also indicated that work-family conflict relationships differ in strength as a function of regional clusters, lending support to the use of configural approaches to examine cross-cultural variation. Overall, our findings suggest that domain demands are a robust predictor of work-family conflict across countries and that affective correlates to work-family conflict meaningfully vary in strength as a function of cultural context. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Challenge and hindrance stressors and metabolic risk factors

The current study investigates differential relationships between challenge and hindrance stressors and metabolic risk factors using data from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS II). Guided by the challenge-hindrance stressor model and the allostatic load model, we test two theoretically driven paths: a direct physiological path and an indirect path via health behaviors (i.e., high-risk eating, cigarette smoking, and alcohol consumption). Challenge stressors versus hindrance stressors were hypothesized to differentially predict health behaviors and metabolic risk factors. Results favor the health behavior-mediated pathway in comparison with the direct physiological pathway. High-risk food consumption served as a link between hindrance stressors and metabolic risk factors. Some evidence supported smoking as a link between hindrance stressors and metabolic risk factors, and alcohol consumption as a link between challenge stressors and metabolic risk factors. The pattern of findings supported the challenge-hindrance distinction, particularly in relation to health behaviors. By combining the challenge-hindrance and allostatic load literatures, our study theoretically and empirically extends knowledge of how work stressors relate to physiological outcomes. Moreover, we also extend the nomological network of challenge and hindrance stressors to behavioral and physiological outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Societal individualism-collectivism and uncertainty avoidance as cultural moderators of relationships between job resources and strain

The job demands-resources model is a dominant theoretical framework that describes the influence of job demands and job resources on employee strain. Recent research has highlighted that the effects of job demands on strain vary across cultures, but similar work has not explored whether this is true for job resources. Given that societal characteristics can influence individuals' cognitive structures and, to a lesser extent, values in a culture, we address this gap in the literature and argue that individuals' strain in reaction to job resources may differ across cultures. Specifically, we theorize that the societal cultural dimensions of individualism-collectivism and uncertainty avoidance shape individual-level job resource-strain relationships, as they dictate which types of resources (i.e., individual vs. group preference-oriented and uncertainty-reducing vs. not) are more likely to be valued, used, or effective in combating strain within a culture. Results revealed that societal individualism-collectivism and uncertainty avoidance independently moderated the relationships between certain job resources (i.e., job control, participation in decision making, and clear goals and performance feedback) and strain (i.e., job satisfaction and turnover intentions). This study expands our understanding of the cross-cultural specificity versus generalizability of the job demands-resources model.

A meta-analysis of work-family conflict and social support

The relationship between social support and work-family conflict is well-established, but the notion that different forms, sources, and types of social support as well as contextual factors can alter this relationship has been relatively neglected. To address this limitation, the current study provides the most comprehensive and in-depth examination of the relationship between social support and work-family conflict to date. We conduct a meta-analysis based on 1021 effect sizes and 46 countries to dissect the social support and work-family conflict relationship. Using social support theory as a theoretical framework, we challenge the assumption that social support measures are interchangeable by comparing work/family support relationships with work-family conflict across different support forms (behavior, perceptions), sources (e.g., supervisor, coworker, spouse), types (instrumental, emotional), and national contexts (cultural values, economic factors). National context hypotheses use a strong inferences paradigm in which utility and value congruence theoretical perspectives are pitted against one another. Significant results concerning support source are in line with social support theory, indicating that broad sources of support are more strongly related to work-family conflict than are specific sources of support. In line with utility perspective from social support theory, culture and economic national context significantly moderate some of the relationships between work/family support and work interference with family, indicating that social support is most beneficial in contexts in which it is needed or perceived as useful. The results suggest that organizational support may be the most important source of support overall. (PsycINFO Database Record

Measurement Invariance of the Satisfaction With Life Scale Across 26 Countries

The Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) is a commonly used life satisfaction scale. Cross-cultural researchers use SWLS to compare mean scores of life satisfaction across countries. Despite the wide use of SWLS in cross-cultural studies, measurement invariance of SWLS has rarely been investigated, and previous studies showed inconsistent findings. Therefore, we examined the measurement invariance of SWLS with samples collected from 26 countries. To test measurement invariance, we utilized three measurement invariance techniques: (a) multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (MG-CFA), (b) multilevel confirmatory factor analysis (ML-CFA), and (c) alignment optimization methods. The three methods demonstrated that configural and metric invariances of life satisfaction held across 26 countries, whereas scalar invariance did not. With partial invariance testing, we identified that the intercepts of Items 2, 4, and 5 were noninvariant. Based on two invariant intercepts, factor means of countries were compared. Chile showed the highest factor mean; Spain and Bulgaria showed the lowest. The findings enhance our understanding of life satisfaction across countries, and they provide researchers and practitioners with practical guidance on how to conduct measurement invariance testing across countries.

Formal Peer Mentoring

This study investigated several factors related to protégés' satisfaction with a formal peer mentoring program. These included the extent to which mentoring behaviors met career-related needs and psychosocial needs and the amount of time spent with the mentor. In addition, demographic variables and satisfaction with the present and previous mentoring experience were examined for their relationship to protégés' willingness to mentor others in the future. Results indicated that the degree of career and psychosocial functions served by a mentor were strongly related to protégés' satisfaction with the mentoring relationship. Also, willingness to mentor others in the future was related to protégés' gender and to protégés' satisfaction with their current mentoring experiences. Implications and directions for future research are addressed.

Further Investigation of Protégés’ Negative Mentoring Experiences

Negative mentoring experiences encountered by 242 protégés across their career histories were examined. Negative mentoring experiences clustered into two factors: Distancing/Manipulative Behavior and Poor Dyadic Fit. Protégés’ reports of the impact that these experiences had on them further suggested that several types of negative mentoring experiences were related to job satisfaction, turnover intentions, and stress. Finally, protégés in formally initiated mentoring relationships reported the most negative experience as having more of an effect on turnover intentions and stress than protégés in informal relationships. The results are discussed in the context of broadening the focus of mentoring research and implications for applied practice.

A Cross-Level Investigation of the Relationship Between Career Management Practices and Career-Related Attitudes

The relationship between an organization’s use of various career management practices and career attitudes was examined in a multisource, cross-level field study using organization-level data from 65 companies and individual-level data from 1,876 employees. A bundle approach was used to categorize 16 career management practices into clusters. As expected, the career management bundle associated with future strategic planning was positively related to satisfaction with the promotion process and negatively related to perceptions of job content plateauing. Consistent with research on strategic human resource management, significant interactions were found between some of the career management bundles in predicting satisfaction with the promotion process. A significant interaction was also found between the career management bundle of future strategic planning and sex, in terms of predicting satisfaction with the promotion process. Implications for theory and applied research are discussed.

An Examination of the Role of Age in Mentoring Relationships

This study examined the role of both age and age diversity in mentorships using quantitative and qualitative methodology. Based on data from nonfaculty employees of a large university, it found that the absolute age of the protégé in mentorships influenced career mentoring provided, characteristics of the mentorship, and perceptions of mutual learning. Older protégés on average experienced less career-related mentoring, had shorter relationships, were closer in level to their mentor, and reported more mutual learning than younger protégés. Protégé age interacted with mentor age, however, such that young protégés seemed to receive similar styles of mentoring regardless of mentor age, but as protégés age increased, they reported more career and psychosocial mentoring from younger than from older mentors. The content analysis of qualitative data revealed important variables to investigate in future research on age diversity in mentorships, including perceptions of competence and respect, similarity, and interpersonal comfort.

Perceptions of Relocation Services in Relocation Decision Making

The importance of relocation services is examined in a sample of 872 employees and spouses. Results indicated that spouses rated all relocation services higher than employees, with the exception of educational information. Comparisons among male and female employees, singleaners and dual-earners, as well as employees with children living at home and those without children living at home also yielded significant differences, primarily in terms of spouse employment assistance, dependent care information, and educational information. Results are discussed in terms of future research and practice, with an emphasis on exploring relocation issues for employees and spouses in a variety of a marital and family arrangements.

Career Success Outcomes Associated With Mentoring Others

The present study examines the relationship between four career success variables—salary, promotions, subjective career success, and job satisfaction— with experience as an informal mentor among employees of a health care organization. Regression results indicate that individuals who serve as a mentor to others report greater salary, greater promotion rates, and stronger subjective career success than do individuals without any experience as a mentor to others. The results provide preliminary evidence supporting the notion that career benefits are associated with serving as a mentor to others.

The Role of Interpersonal Comfort in Mentoring Relationships

This research examined interpersonal comfort as a potential mediating mechanism in mentoring relationships. Results indicated that interpersonal comfort mediated the relationship between gender similarity and protégé reports of career and psychosocial mentoring. Contrary to prediction, interpersonal comfort did not mediate relationships involving mentorship type (i.e., formal versus informal). However, we did find that informal mentoring and interpersonal comfort were positively associated with career mentoring. The research helps illustrate the important role that interpersonal comfort plays in the mentoring process.

A Cross-National Comparative Study of Work/Family Demands and Resources

This article presents phase 2 of the Collaborative International Study of Managerial Stress (CISMS2) with the objective of studying cross culturally/cross-nationally potential causes and consequences of work-family conflict. This collaborative international study contributes to the existing literature on work and family by adding a different theoretical perspective (interaction between demands and resources, and resource loss), following the thinking of Grandey and Cropanzano, focusing on a specific collective (managers), and testing both universalistic and cross cultural hypotheses in a large sample taken from 25 countries in different continents, representing different socio-cultural contexts. It will explore cross cultural/cross-national issues in a comparative sense, looking at how family and societal differences relate to work-family conflict. More specifically we expect that individualism/collectivism and the presence of family-supportive government policies will moderate relationships between demands, resources and work-family conflict.

How Effective Is Telecommuting? Assessing the Status of Our Scientific Findings

Telecommuting has become an increasingly popular work mode that has generated significant interest from scholars and practitioners alike. With recent advances in technology that enable mobile connections at ever-affordable rates, working away from the office as a telecommuter has become increasingly available to many workers around the world. Since the term telecommuting was first coined in the 1970s, scholars and practitioners have debated the merits of working away from the office, as it represents a fundamental shift in how organizations have historically done business. Complicating efforts to truly understand the implications of telecommuting have been the widely varying definitions and conceptualizations of telecommuting and the diverse fields in which research has taken place.Our objective in this article is to review existing research on telecommuting in an effort to better understand what we as a scientific community know about telecommuting and its implications. In so doing, we aim to bring to the surface some of the intricacies associated with telecommuting research so that we may shed insights into the debate regarding telecommuting's benefits and drawbacks. We attempt to sift through the divergent and at times conflicting literature to develop an overall sense of the status of our scientific findings, in an effort to identify not only what we know and what we think we know about telecommuting, but also what we must yet learn to fully understand this increasingly important work mode.After a brief review of the history of telecommuting and its prevalence, we begin by discussing the definitional challenges inherent within existing literature and offer a comprehensive definition of telecommuting rooted in existing research. Our review starts by highlighting the need to interpret existing findings with an understanding of how the extent of telecommuting practiced by participants in a study is likely to alter conclusions that may be drawn. We then review telecommuting's implications for employees' work-family issues, attitudes, and work outcomes, including job satisfaction, organizational commitment and identification, stress, performance, wages, withdrawal behaviors, and firm-level metrics. Our article continues by discussing research findings concerning salient contextual issues that might influence or alter the impact of telecommuting, including the nature of the work performed while telecommuting, interpersonal processes such as knowledge sharing and innovation, and additional considerations that include motives for telecommuting such as family responsibilities. We also cover organizational culture and support that may shape the telecommuting experience, after which we discuss the community and societal effects of telecommuting, including its effects on traffic and emissions, business continuity, and work opportunities, as well as the potential impact on societal ties. Selected examples of telecommuting legislation and policies are also provided in an effort to inform readers regarding the status of the national debate and its legislative implications. Our synthesis concludes by offering recommendations for telecommuting research and practice that aim to improve the quality of data on telecommuting as well as identify areas of research in need of development.

Attachment anxiety in mentoring: the role of commitment

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of commitment in the relationship between protégés’ anxious attachment styles and feedback behaviors of both mentors and protégés.

Design/methodology/approach

– Data were collected from 100 academic protégé-mentor dyads, and reports from both members of the mentoring relationships were used to test hypotheses.

Findings

– The results suggested that protégé perceptions of mentor commitment and self-reported protégé commitment mediated the relationships between protégé anxious attachment style and protégé feedback seeking and feedback acceptance. Additionally, mentor perceptions of protégé commitment played an important role, mediating the relationships between protégé anxious attachment and quality and quantity of mentor feedback.

Research limitations/implications

– Taken together, the results reveal the important role of perceptions of partner commitment in high-quality mentoring behaviors.

Originality/value

– This study was among the first to examine feedback and commitment in academic mentoring relationships, particularly taking into account commitment of each member of the dyad as well as their perceptions of the other person’s commitment.

Work-family conflict among members of full-time dual-earner couples: an examination of family life stage, gender, and age

Based on cross-sectional data from the 2008 National Study of the Changing Workforce, this study investigates relationships between gender, age, and work-family conflict across 6 family life stages. Participants were 690 married/partnered employees who worked 35 or more hours a week. Results indicated a small but negative relationship between age and work-family conflict. Work-family conflict was also associated with family stage, with the least amount of conflict occurring during the empty nest stage and the most occurring when the youngest child in the home was 5 years of age or younger. Gender differences were also observed. Specifically, men reported more work interference with family than did women when the youngest child in the home was a teen. Women overall reported more family interference with work than did men. Results concerning age and gender revealed a different pattern demonstrating that family stage is not simply a proxy for age. Age had a main effect on work-to-family conflict that was monotonic in nature and on family to-work conflict that was linear in nature. In conclusion, the results indicate gender, age, and family stage each uniquely relate to work-family conflict.

Episodic work-family conflict, cardiovascular indicators, and social support: an experience sampling approach

Work-family conflict, a prevalent stressor in today's workforce, has been linked to several detrimental consequences for the individual, including physical health. The present study extends this area of research by examining episodic work-family conflict in relation to objectively measured cardiovascular health indicators (systolic and diastolic blood pressure and heart rate) using an experience sampling methodology. The results suggested that the occurrence of an episode of work interference with family conflict is linked to a subsequent increase in heart rate but not blood pressure; however, the relationship between episodes of family interference with work conflict and both systolic and diastolic blood pressure is moderated by perceptions of family-supportive supervision. No evidence was found for the moderating role of work-supportive family. Further theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Family-supportive organization perceptions and organizational commitment: the mediating role of work-family conflict and enrichment and partner attitudes

The present study aims to explain the processes through which family-supportive organizational perceptions (FSOP) relate to employee affective commitment. We suggest multiple mechanisms through which this relationship transpires-(a) the focal employee's experience of work-to-family conflict and enrichment and (b) the attitudes of the employee's spouse/partner. Hypotheses are tested with data from 408 couples. Results suggest that employee FSOP is positively associated with employee commitment through both employee work-to-family experiences and partner attitudes. FSOP was positively related to employee work-to-family enrichment, which was positively associated with employee affective commitment. FSOP was negatively associated with employee work-to-family conflict, which related to a partner's more positive attitude toward the employee's work schedule and higher commitment to the employee's firm. Partner commitment was positively and reciprocally related to employee affective commitment. These relationships partially mediated the FSOP-employee affective commitment relationship and varied as a function of parental status and single- versus dual-earner couple status but not as a function of employee gender. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.